I dunno about you guys but I’ve never thougt of myself as being married, old and not worthy to appreciate eye candies in the form of gorgeous men.

It’s not that I’m in some strange ways dissatisfied with my life and it’s not that I’m looking for something MORE. It’s just like looking at flowers. Checking out new species of flowers, a new breed, an eye-catching at that too.

Anyways.

Before MrGart threw me yet another murderous look, a disclaimer here. MrGart is by far and wide (he!) is the handsom-est guy ever. He knows it and I know it. We are a happily married couple. Have been for 11 years and 13 days. We are content.

But I love looking at other men, no intention to do anything whatsoever. Just looking. Remember the looking at flowers, new breed metaphor. It’s like that. I’d love to guess what theire lives are like.

Anyways.

Enter MysteriousGuy #1.

He came with his whining, cutesy 4 year old girl who joined Aliya, Ayisha and Adani (now out of the class)’s swimming lessons. MysteriousGuy #1 has the soppy, droopy looks on his face. His eyes are not unlike those of the Hush Pupp1ies’ dog’s, very please-hold-me, and i-need-you as well as you-are-my-everything just oozes out of his eyes. He’s not muscular, but slender. He walks with such a lazy stroll and his hands are just screaming hold-me-comfort-me. Yup, THAT type.

So, since I was doing nothing the whole hour by the poolside (light ‘s a but dim for reading), I imagined that this guy was a divorcee. His wife ran off with another man, his best friend, maybe, that’s why he’s so solemn and sad.

And for the first 3 lessons, he came alone, holding his frail little baby girl’s hands and looking away so full of thoughts. Well, imagien my suprise when he turned up Tuesday night with none other than his wife. At least I think she was. But they didn’t hold hands, or anything like that. In fact on the last few minutes, both of them were sitting side by side, each curled their legs AWAY from each other. AHA!

Now MysteriousGuy #2. I know his name, I know where he lives and he knows I’m amrried with 4 kids, especially when I brought Ariz to him last night for his fever. Not so mysterious but triggered MrGart’s jealousy. MrGart didn’t know that while I was in the consultation room, I found out that he lives in BJ, he rarely goes out, he’s attached to Hospital K1ang. He’s drop dead gorgoues I can you that! So, when I was very friendly-ish bid him Goodnight before we left the clinic, MrGart launched into his “oo dulu kata I hensem, dah boroi sikit, mulalah tu”.

And then the kids joined in.

“Mummy ada boyfriend baru ke?”

“Nanti Mummy kawin dengan Dr R, Daddy pulak jadi doctor” – Adani’s jibe.

And a whole lot of boyfriends talks.

Hmmmmmm .. Ooohh I almost forgot.

These love-leh cuppies are called the Black-Bottomed Cupcakes a.k.a Bontot Hitam. Ha ha ha ah ha! Sorry babes, I just couldn’t help myself. It’s chocolate at the butts and creamcheese topping on top. Bontot Hitam .. ka ka ka ak!

Baked these last night in gratitute to Norlizma, Amin, ZulMN, Day, Mosh, Hez, Haiza, Aini and a few other who I frantically managed to pester to find ONE lousy but super-important 1998 letter which finally miraculously turned up. PHEW!

Project Rainbow Cake

Last night’s results.

Forgot to do the clouds at the foot of the rainbow but I guess this was alright. Ayisha beamed and the kids were swooned.

He he he.

Me. Smug.

Being a Boy

This is not a friendly territory. And an alien one at that too. At least to me. Especially for me with my three gorgeous girls.

But I guess this is a welcome relief from months of seeing him with a nekkid Barbie under his arms, pushing a purple stroller.

And this is definitely a major phew from months of persuading him to take off that purple tudung off his face, while he feeds a green teddy from a small pink cup and Ayisha & Adani tending to a sick teddy on the same bed.

PHEW !!

There was a time when he was into lions (from Narnia) , zebras, elephants and eagles, I was kinda of happy for him being developmentally sound. Until he really thought he was one of these animals. Remember the roaring and growling to EVERYBODY and crawling under tables, and eating off the floor and licking EVERYTHING.

And since we never have robots, or these Power Rangers or GranSazer things at home, he was never really introduced to them. Except at Nobita’s place. Her Imran and Irfan are staunch fans of these laser-fighting tight-wearing undies warriors. I’m not a big fan to these things and am more worried about the violent nature of it.

It never caught on.

Until Transformer the movie came up. Even I was a sudden fan.

Ariz was transformed. Everything is a o-bot (robot). Even the transmission towers dotting the landscape of the country are o-bots. We succumbed to the fascination, especialy MrGart. WHo has bought a small squadron of these robots at home.

Boys really do take these things at heart. He plays with them contently. He takes a robot and bangs them against the lion. Again and again.

Last Saturday, while we shopped at Tesco waiting for the girls from their English & Maths lessons, he made me pick these up. Nasib baik murah!

And this was where we were and what he did, while we waited.

I have a boy, alright!

Bacteria Macteria .. Me Gone Bonkers

Let’s not make any mistake.

I have tonnes of work, but I just can’t stop thinking about this.

You see, I read that if you theoretically speaking, take every single bacteria from the face of the earth, and down it’s core and spread them all over the earth, even the seas, they’ll cover a depth of 15 meters all around the earth. Makes me squirm!

And there are peculiar things about them. One I know that that they divide super-rapidly. One single bacteria is able to replicate about 280 million times when we are barely completing one single division. And 1 in every million division will result in a mutation which most times just die off.

But sometimes, the mutation gives them an edge, an advantage and probably an immunity against an otherwise potent antibiotic. And the magical is that the bacteria who gains this info, SHARES it with others. Unlike some people who kedekut ilmu. Ha ha ha .

And that’s how a whole species of a bacteria becomes immuned to an antibiotic which normally kills them.

There!

Now I can start to work. Bit late eh?

Embergris

Or was it ambergris?

Anyways.

It’s what’s been accumulating in the sperm whale’s stomachs whose staple diets are giant squids that no one has ever seen before. When a sperm whale eats a giant squid, the beak which is indigestible accumulates and over time turns to embergris.

And guess what?

This enbergris is used as a fixative in perfurmes. So, next time you spray our Channe1 Number 5, or Eternity M0ment, or take a whiff from your man’s chest of Dunhill, remember that one of the must-have ingredients are giant squid’s beaks!

Yikes!

Teeming With Trivial Points

You know I mentioned that I’m reading Bill Bryson’s A History of Nearly Everything. Very slowly, I should say, since I’m also reading 5 other books at the same time.

Anyway, very slowly too cos I love it too much and I keep going back and forth, back and forth. You see, I’m a sucker for scientific titdbits. I love facts about the planetary system, the black hole, the Big Bang, how dinaosaurs dissapeared off the face of the earth, the Earth’s core, the unicellular beings whose number outnumbers us greatly.

But this book tells me about the metals in the earth’s core and about theories how life began on earth. I’m a scientific person, I love to think how things come together but I also am a failthful servant of Allah. And I know Darwin’s theory is wrong, but this book tells me a lot more than that. It tells me that although man now, knows more than we did 200 years ago, what we know is what Allah lets us know. It’s nothing new to Allah. It’s his rules and his creations, like us too, God’s creations.

There are a lot of things we have yet to understand like how giant squids become the sperm whale’s staple diet when no one’s seen one ever. And we know more about the surface of Mars than we do our own sea beds.

But the more I know, the more I affirm my belief in Allah because it really is a miracle, this Earth we’re all sitting right now.

Allahu Akbar!

Water Babies

These are my 3 girlie water babies, busy kicking in the water during their lessons last night at Pus@t Aku@tik Sel@ngor.

Aliya can actually do breaststroke well, but she never finishes her free-style, so I guess she might as well start again. The class was pretty basic for her but I guess she’ll just have fun then. When she goes up her levels, then she’ll start getting competitive.

Asha refused lessons with Instructor Lee, 2 years ago together with Aliya and since she’s the free willy type, very the adventurous and jumps into deeper water with just the chest-squares-body-harness float which only she is comfortable to use, I guess she’d better start learn proper swimming strokes and she loved it from the wide grins on her face last night.

Adani is the cautious one, look before you leap kind. But we’re taking a chance here since both sisters are in, let’s just slot her in. She’s not afraid of water, none of my babies are ever. But she’s very safe. She wouldn’t thread on places she’s never ventured before i.e. “I’ll stay in my float if I can’t feel the bottom of the pool” or “I’ll hang out at these steps”. True enough. Last night, she refused to join the class but in half an hour’s time, she came and said that she was ready to join and there she was having a bubbly time. I was glad that she took hold of her fear and realised it herself cos I don’t think forcing her would do it.

By the way, the entry level is called the JellyFish level. They’re not expected to do much, just emulate what jellyfishes do, with extra pair of hands and a few tentacles short.

Now, Ariz, Ariz, Ariz. He’s the fearless type. We introduced water to all the 4 kids as early as 6 months old and almost twice a month, so I guess if they’re fearless, they were trained to be so. None of the was afraid of water at all. But with Ariz, lucky us, we drilled into him to put his ring float on when he jumps into the water. So that really a comfort to me,though you can’t blink when he’s in the water. He hops, he jumps, he runs and jumps into the pool. He flip-flops and he splashes. He really has a whale of a time in the water, this one is.

And if anyone needs swimming classes, he and Asha do. But they’ve refused Ariz. Too young, won’t be able to take directions. True true true. So, there he was last night, swimming around by himself.

By the way the pool was abuzz with activities last night which suprised me tremendously. There were about 7 lessons simultaneously in the 2 pools outside, from beginners, intermediate and even advanced swimmers. I did not peek into the indoor pool. My oh my! Shah Alam kids sure are busy in the water, eh?

Cuti-Cuti Malaysia .. Phewww!

We’re back!

I’m back and what a whirlwhind trip that was.

First of all, the camera, fully charged was left taking pictures on top of the TV cabinet at home. So, all these were taken by MrGart’s N95 and since I’m not a huge fan of phone cameras, I just stayed away from taking, just standing in one or two.

Anyways.

Spent 2 nights at JB. Danga Bay was a BLAST!! Giler happening! Both nights were spent there. Dinner, rides, train rides, walks by the seaside. And of course the kids drained MrGart’s wallets with wanting to get on EVERY ride there was. I physically bodily took him away from his favourite brown horse ferris wheel.

We spent Saturday night at my auntie’s place in Jasin, a bungalow in a middle of nowhere and I had goosebumps but it was good meeting relatives. Sunday was spent driving from Jasin to Ayer Keroh. Ariz saw the bullock carts after we had lunch at the eMcD and we went for a round. Busuk! Another leg from Ayer Keroh to Senawang, visiting my Mak Ndak and ailing Tok. After devouring the late lunch of udang galah, we hopped over to Nilai 3 where my Mak Ndak, Mak Lang and the soon to be engaged cousins were and met up.

Then another leg from Nilai to my twin’s place at Cahaya Heights to pick up the maid and finally, home sweet home. Penat!

I’ll just let the pictures tell the stories then.

Ariz on a horse. He rode on another horse an hour after this.

Ariz & Asha on one of those kiddie roller coasters. Apart from Adani who looked absolutely terrified on these high-speed rides, the others were laughing very loudly and happily, while we parents, counted the remaining money left.

Ariz suprised us when we rode the bike effortlessly and managed to avoid hitting other bikers. Atta boy!

On the bullock cart, right after the black bull smacked Asha with his tail, trying to hit a fly. Busuk weh!


After the drama of “Nak naik” and the excited faces on the bullock cart, Ariz was screaming to get away from the bull, Aliya put on a brave face, trying to laugh at Ariz, Adani clung to me for dear life and Asha stuck to Aliya. Cehs!

I Yelled At Her

Busy busy Monday I had yesterday doing absolutely everything.

Anyways.

Asha is now taking English lessons from the kewl Teacher Claire, together with Adani. I swapped Asha over to English from Mental Arithmetic as she needs to firm up on her spelling pretty soon. Aliya is still doing her Mental Arithmetic by choice. I picked them up on Saturday and had a long chat with Teacher Claire.

Adani is assessed by Teacher Claire a self-starter, eager stduent and with appropriate attention span which makes it easy for her to concentrate and progress. Ayisha on the other hand, has short attention span and is very easily distracted. It’s not that she doesn’t know the stuff, she just finds OTHER stuff more interesting to look at. And I had to agree with her, and kicked myself in the backside for not realising this sooner. I suspected Ayisha of everything, worse things but this, though very obvious, just whooshed by me.

This explains why in exams she’s pretty much exceeds her normal home and class work cos she has to concentrate under strict supervision but when she’s asked to do something, unless you’re centimeters away from her, it doesn’t get done or it does in a long time and shabbily sometimes. And this also explains why she’s having a bit of trouble progressing in her Kum0n in that she knows them at the required time, but wastes time being distracted.

I really like and trust this Teacher Claire as she seems genuinely interested in the girls’ progress and she takes special regard of Ayisha, even putting her on her lap for Asha to focus on the task at hand. And Adani & Asha adore Teacher Claire. So, pardon my bulging eyeballs when she told me that the whole of December she’s not gonna around and a replacement teacher is coming in her place. Sigh!

Anyways.

Intervention with Ayisha. TV in the house is turned off between 9 and 10 at night, every night, well, probably with the exception of the Kum0n nights. And everybody ages 4 and up will READ through this hour. Anyone below, depending on moods and temperamental will do as he pleases, though reading normally takes his fancy.

The hour begins with kum0n for 15 minutes, then the reading begins.

But it all did not go so smoothly every night. The night before, I sat with Ayisha yelling at her for 20 minutes while she does her English exercises. I think I yelled myself hoarse and felt really really bad that night. She cried a bit but impatience and sheer lack of control on my side, egged me to yell some more. If I had been a bit more apathetic and see that she was trying, I wouldn’ve been a better teacher and a better mother. I yelled at my own daughter! Preposterous. I should be shot and I still call myself a mother.

Yesterday’s drive to the office, I thought about this and it hurt that I did that again and again and again, no matter how much I vowed never to do it again. MrGart has accused me of being so MrsGoodyTwoShoes in my blogs that I never published things that are demeaning to me. I did not retort back cos he wins anyway. There’s not much that I can do except to again and again not to lose my patience. But it’s a hard thing to do when you’re being smothered with every other requests in the house when all you wanna do is to help the one who needs it most. Women they say are great multi-taskers, but we do it at the expense of our sanity and that sanity often hangs by a thread before it snaps.

There are 2 things that MrGart says that hurts me the most. One is that he thinks that I’m a fake for not telling ppl that I am a mean mother to my kids and the other is the way he describes to everybody how easy it was for me to give birth to everybody and that I don’t deserve the attention I do because I was on epidural. It’s bad enough that I have to fend myself from ppl who think that I’m such a woos for taking epidurals, to have myself described as such by a person closest to me is almost cruel.

Anyways.

I suddenly feel sad and gloomy which I think a trip to MidV’s Metr0′s Preview Sale will cure soon. Hmm.

Bye Bye Birdie

Remember I blogged about the moment of insanity MrGart suffered and in that instant agreed with the kids to get a bird?

It was an English budgie and I’m still not sure whether it was a he or a she.  I never really had a chance to snap a pic of that bird that set us back RM300, that did not include the fanciful cage and the paraphernalia the girls got that little Birdie.

Birdie’s wings were clipped, cruelly, I suspect so that it would be able to fly very high and very far either.  I knew this AFTER the purchase, lest I’d throw one of my thou-shalt-not-hurt-God’s-creatures sermons.

Anyway, wings clipped, Birdie was supposed to be tame and to make it even tamer, we’re supposed to take it out of its cage daily, caress it, talk to it and generally shower it with love.  Theoretically, that it.  The truth is that, ALL the girls are afraid of any animals or creatures.  Aliya would crouch her shoulders and in constant position to scramble should the bird attacks her.  Adani would stand away from the bird and just instructs MrGart what she would like to have done on the bird.  Ayisha is yet another bird-lover from afar.

Ariz is excluded in this picture cos we don’t want him NEAR the bird.  As much as he likes it, he’s fearless too and if Birdie just walks around, he’d tailgate it and tries to hold it.  I’ve had images of a crushed Birdie, neck twisted in a sordid manner, mangled by my schweet little prince.  *shudder*

Anyway, this is a long way of telling you that it was a mistake.  I hate pets.  I don’t have a fondness over animals, which I did have when I was child.  I guess when you switch roles from a cared-for to the one that cares for, another liability is what you’re trying to avoid.  Birds are smelly, and I have a soft heart.  I don’t like the fact that Birdie lives in a cage.  I feel it’s so cruel.  And I don’t like to be the one feeding it when it’s hungry and having to think of it everytime.  But for the kids, I gave in.  That, and also they wanted either a hamster, dog or a cat.  So, a bird is a HUGE compromise.

Well, my parents and sisters dropped over at my house and suddenly we realised that Birdie’s gone. It’s highly unlikely that the bird opened his own cage from OUTSIDE, so someone did it for him.  That someone has not been smoked out yet, maybe ever.

Well, MrGart and others for a search and rescue.  But how the heck do you find a bird?  2 hours later, MrGart spotted it high up on a branch of a tall tree’s 30 meters from the house.  He called to her lovingly, which I laughed it off.  Soon, it flew to another tree and since it was getting dark and us, being clueless on how you entice a bird to get back into its own cage, we caved in.   If it’s meant to be, Birdie will come right back to our lawn.

It’s been 5 days and the cage’s quiet and Birdie is hopefully happier on a branch of a tree somewhere.  He’s an imported British budgie, so I guess he’d better learn the local dialect fast, eh?

Me?  I’m mourning the loss of Birdie deeply.  Sadly.  I’ll miss him/her.

YAYYYYY!